Studying in Europe

Your guide to higher education in Europe

Encompassing almost 50 nations with 600 million people speaking 48 languages and as many dialects, Europe is a region that is diverse in every sense of the word.

Europe offers a wealth of choice for students

Some time studying in Europe will also help your future career prospects in a competitive job market. Increasingly, employers are looking beyond their immediate regional labour market to a wider European market. Many of your European peers are spending part of their higher education in another European country. This is enriching their personal development and enhancing their job opportunities. Some time in Europe will help you feel confident that you too share that extra experience.

Students with qualifications, skills, initiative and linguistic ability can be increasingly mobile in their working life. Many areas of employment are likely to involve you cooperating with colleagues in other countries and studying and working for a period in those countries will help you to get the most out of those relationships.

The language and course are usually seen as the most important criteria when choosing where to study, but don’t forget other, perhaps more personal, considerations. Which country is the best place to go for your favourite sporting activity? Are you desperate for hot sunshine, or perhaps you’d enjoy snowy Christmas landscapes to go skiing between lectures?

When you are not thinking about the language and the course you can’t help but think about your future and your costs. Any overseas study is going to boost your job prospects by showing employers you’ve got that little bit more experience and learning.

Funding

Access to full-time undergraduate study may be regarded as free in a dozen countries. In three countries (Finland, Sweden and in the public sector in Norway), only subscriptions to student organisations are required; in Denmark no contribution is due. In these Nordic countries, therefore, access to tertiary education may be regarded as free. The situation is similar in the case of all programmes in Estonia, Ireland, Cyprus, Greece, Slovenia, and Scotland, and for students with a subsidised place in Latvia (around 25%). It also exists in the Czech Republic in long theoretical programmes and in Spain in short vocational programmes.

Fourteen countries require their students to pay tuition fees. In most, the annual amounts vary between price per student (PPS) €200 and PPS €1,000. Institutions are often free to determine the precise amount subject to a fixed upper limit. In Italy and in the government-dependent private sector in Norway, institutions are completely free to set the amount. Where an upper limit is set, it can reach more than PPS €6,000 in the public sector for students without a state-subsidised place in Latvia and in some programmes in Portugal. Since 2006/07, in England and Northern Ireland, institutions have been able to determine tuition fees, without exceeding the fixed maximum of PPS €4,031.

Fifteen countries have demonstrated their wish to set a limit on the period intended for study by increasing the fees due from students who take longer to complete their course. The actual amount concerned is often left to the discretion of institutions. Tuition fees are more in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Turkey. In six countries, namely the Czech Republic (long theoretical programmes), Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia and Scotland, as well as in six Länder in Germany, the only instance in which student nationals have to pay a contribution is when they have fallen behind schedule. However, tuition free of charge is maintained in Denmark, Greece, Spain (in short vocational programmes), Cyprus, Malta, Sweden, Finland and Norway (in the public sector).

Financial support

In many countries in which personal contributions are expected, exemptions or reductions are available from the public authorities. Such support is generally awarded on the basis of parental income. In some countries, support takes the form of grants, loans or both. Grants, or grants and loans in combination, are the most common forms of student support. The continuation of support is often conditional on students progressing satisfactorily with their studies. Loans are non-existent in Belgium (the German-speaking and Flemish Communities), Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Malta, Austria, Portugal and Slovenia. Iceland is the only country to award loans.

The level of loans is generally higher than that of grants, and in most cases ranges from PPS €1,500 to PPS €4,500 a year. The highest annual grants are awarded in Denmark (a universal flat rate of PPS €5,759), Luxembourg (a flat rate of €7,383) and Austria (a maximum grant of €7,013). Loans are made on favourable terms as regards interest rates and repayment often begins when students have finished their studies, but the amount repaid each month is tied to graduate income in only four countries (Poland, Iceland, the UK and Hungary). However, debts may be cancelled or reduced under certain conditions in the majority of countries.

Only Romania allocates loans at market rates, requires repayment during the study period and it also does not link repayment to income. Satisfactory completion of studies within the prescribed period is a criterion for cancelling the debt (the Netherlands) or reducing it (Germany and Luxembourg). In six countries (Spain, France, Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and Finland), debt cannot be cancelled or reduced on the basis of any formal criteria and loan repayments are not proportional to income.

Out of the 22 countries with student accommodation at preferential rents, only seven – Bulgaria, Germany, France, Cyprus, Lithuania, Romania and Turkey – have set a maximum rent (of between PPS €61 and PPS €338 depending on the country). The number of places is often very limited: less than 15% of students can be accommodated in this way, except in Bulgaria (24%) and Hungary (22%).

There are no regulations governing support for accommodation in Belgium, Sweden, the UK or Norway. Eighteen European countries prolong financial support for the parents of students in tertiary education, whether as family allowances, tax relief or both.

Bulgaria, Spain, Malta, Romania, the United Kingdom and the Nordic countries provide neither of these forms of support for the parents of students. The Netherlands and Ireland do so under specific circumstances.

For more information, visit:
www.euroeducation.net
www.eurochoice.org.uk

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